diat-tem1

Title

Crickets choice of habitat pending on habitats with and without sound. Testing new natural methods for pest control.

Problem Scenario

Well, my project is beneficial because it tells you what environment to keep your crickets in if your going to stock up on them, say to feed a pet or something. Also it tells you that if you don't want crickets in your yard you can put small sound devices out so they keep away.

Broad Question'

Does sound effect an insects habitat choice?

Specific Question

Does sound effect a crickets choice of habitat?

Hypothesis

Yes, I think that sound will effect a crickets choice of habitat because, crickets live in the woods where it's a quiet habitat then if they enter a habitat containing sound they wont like it because it's not what they have heard living as the insect they are. So i think that a great amount will choose the box containing no sound.

Graph of Hypothesis

Variables

Independent Variable:

One box will have no sound and one will have sound.

Dependent Variable:

The box the cricket chooses to go to.

Variables That Need To Be Controlled:

The crickets, the same noise, the box setting will be the same,same cricket species, same tube.

Vocabulary List That Needs Explanation

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General Plan

My general plan is that I'm just going to get two boxes with a tube, trap door, with air holes and a box with sound and one with out. The crickets will be put in one and then another after the first one is tested. So I'm going to keep track of what boxes they choose and see what it it turns out to be.

Potential Problems And Solutions

If the crickets happen to get loose, pick them up GENTLE and give them a rerun. DO NOT forget to clean all of their scat out of the habitat you're keeping them in. Also feed give them new water everyday or so.

Safety Or Environmental Concerns

Don't release them because they may not be from around here. Also you should keep their cages clean and feed them protein (which is the oats) because they will begin to eat each other and will die.

Experimental Design

Number Of Trials:

18

Number Of Subjects In Each trial:

1

When data will be collected

March 2012

Number of Observations:

4

Where will data be collected?:.

At school, in the science lab.

Resources and Budget Table

Crickets	Pet store	$3-5
Tape	Family Dollar	$1

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Background Research

The backround research I got helped give me a better understanding of my project. I learned detailed facts on how crickets hear, communicate and what habitat they need to be kept in and why. They hear at completley different kHz than human beings do. They need protien, they use stridulation to communicate, they have a lot to them.
My background research on the crickets benefited my project in a number of ways. I learned about what habitat/environment they should be kept in to increase their life span and actually to just keep them alive. I learned about how they communicate and how they hear, which benefited my understanding of how the sound was effecting them. Because for some, the victor device I used could have been to loud.That tells me what kHz they hear with that upsets them and makes them happy. And that effects their choice. As well as their habitat again and temperature differences.
Crickets need protein, if you don't give them protein they will begin to eat each other. Which you need to know because you can't just have them eating each other and you need their life span to last as long as possible to a good extent. Protein sources for them would be seeds, oats(plain oats) and thing similar to those things. Their diet consists of that lettuce and a damp paper towel for hydration. Their environment should give them space and be clean and healthy because if they are not happy they act differently and that can effect the way they see things.
Since the crickets of course sense the sound, you might wonder, how do they do it? Well crickets do something called Stridulation. Stridulation is when an insect rubs one body part with another to communicate with another. Crickets for instance rub their legs together. Now that's how they make the sound but, how do they hear it? Well crickets like grasshoppers, katydids, and cicadas have a thing called tympanum on their legs. The paces of their "chirping" is effected by the temperature, say the temperature was rising higher then the crickets would chirp at a faster paces and decreasing temperatures would cause them to chirp at a less fast more slow pace. But if the temperature is around 50F or above 100F them they usually, practically never chirp. Whether or not they chirp also relies on their relationship life, competition life, etc.
Crickets can hear noises/sounds that range from the "frequency" from 2 to at least 100 kHz. They have 70 auditory receptors in each of their ears. When they sing in dominant frequencies near 4.5 kHz, you can tell that they are singing. Other researchers found that some crickets do build sensitivity to some sounds. There are others that are unlike that and that can withstand a certain higher level of sound. But again with the crickets that cant they put there chirps into a lower frequency of 15 kHz. So now as a result to that research you can infer that the crickets will chirp at a higher frequency when they are happy and go at a lower frequency when they are unhappy.
My background research on the crickets benefited my project in a number of ways. I learned about what habitat/environment they should be kept in to increase their life span and actually to just keep them alive. I learned about how they communicate and how they hear, which benefited my understanding of how the sound was effecting them. Because for some, the victor device I used could have been to loud.That tells me what kHz they hear with that upsets them and makes them happy. And that effects their choice. As well as their habitat again and temperature differences.

References

"CRICKETS AND TEMPERATURE." UNL. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. <http://entomology.unl.edu/k12/crickets/temperature.htm>.
"Cricket Information." Insected. Web. 12 Apr. 2012. <http://insected.arizona.edu/cricketinfo.htm>.
Imaizumi K, Pollack GS (1999) Neural coding of sound frequency
by cricket auditory receptors. J Neurosci 19:1508–1516

Detailed Procedure

1. I will get two boxes from my science teacher.
2. Then I took two toilet paper rolls and taped them together.
3. Next I cut two holes aligned in the middle to tape the two tubes to.
4. Then I put air holes in the boxes.
5. Then I wrote sound on one box and no sound on the other.
6. Then I took a trip to the pet store, and bought some crickets.
7. I tested 1 cricket at a time and gave them about 3 minutes or so to make their final decision.
9. Keep a data table for them as you move on to another cricket.
10. You should do about 20 or so rounds.

Diagram

The entire contraption I used for my expieriment.

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The sound device I used. The Victor Patchaser Model m750

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Results

All Raw Data

Crickets	box with sound	box without sound
1		+
2		+
3		+
4	+
5		+
6		+
7		+
8		+
9		+
10	+
11		+
12	+
13
14		+
15	+
16		+
17		+
18		+

Graphs

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Data Analysis

My graph shows that overall the crickets chose the box with no sound. The first cricket chose the box without sound but then, after about 4 crickets, one chose the box with sound. I was surprised because I figured the sound would scare them. As I did each cricket I noticed that every now and then one cricket would choose the box with sound. In the end though I ended up with 4/18 crickets that chose the box with sound and 14/18 that chose the box without sound. Reduced to 2/9 and 7/9. Though the graph only shows the choices up to ten it is put in the same way as though it were the original number. The graph above shows the blue representing the crickets that chose the box with sound and red the opposite with the box containing no sound. It is a sideways bar graph showing the total amount of each cricket choosing either box.

Conclusion

In the end my original hypothesis was that more of the crickets would choose the box with out sound, with the exception of about 4 or so. My data that I collected supported my hypothesis greatly. Because exactly 4/18 (2/9) crickets in the end chose the box with sound, and I gave an estimate that 4 would choose that box and then the rest would go into the other box. I think that this happened because most of the crickets are sensitive to that particular sound because of what kHz it comes out as. I also think that this happened because the way each individual cricket approaches that sound, some crickets can hear up to higher kHz than others. But the overall results were that 4/18 (2/9) of the crikets chose the box with sound and 14/18 (7/9) chose the box with out sound. My hypothesis turned out to be correct, I had the exact estimate as the data came out to be overall. This project data and background research turned out to support my understanding hugely of why the data cam out to be the way it did. Sound ended up effecting the habitat choice of a cricket in the end.

Discussion

The trends between my quantitative and qualitative data turned out to be that for quantitative data, my projects data was of course realistic because by looking at my background research the data matched how crickets sensitivity to sounds were and how the environment also effected things. As my data continued you could see how it was progressing to an amount that exactly suited the information I researched. For my qualitative data you could see that the trends between how overall the majority of crickets that chose the box with sound was 4/18 (2/9) and the ones who chose the box with no sound was 14/18 (7/9) that also matched the background research exactly and as you went on you could again tell how it was most likely going to turn out being.
Looking at the scientific question, the information from my background research will be helpful to answering it. The scientific question being, does sound effect the habitat chose of a cricket? Well according to my background research crickets have a sensitivity to sounds that come on at such a loud noise in kHz that it scares them and turns them off, such as things higher then 15 kHz. Though again there are crickets who withstand the high level of sound at a higher kHz. The machinery that was used in this procedure was coming out at 20 or so kHz (victor mini sonic pet chaser). That should give you an idea about answering the question with out giving to much information away. Also scientists can use this data to compare it with other animals and take that to a whole new experiment. Three ways to improve my project would be to take the data further and see how it continued on (optional, really, doesn't make much of a difference) but other wise I think that the way my project turned out to be was pretty well.

Benefit to Community and/or Science

My experiment benefited the community by giving people an idea on a new method to control pest control. For instance since my data came out 2/9 sound and 7/9 no sound you can take the experiment to higher levels, say you didn't want a bigger rodent in your yard, you could do research on what kHz that animal hears at and put a device that had louder kHz that would turn them away and experiment a little. That part also benefits science because it gives them a bit more of a new lead to methods for pest control. They could try new experiments and find out different ways maybe other than sound. It also benefits the community by giving them better intakes on the way crickets approach things in communication, the ways they hear and what habitat they resort to. Also scientists can use this data to compare it with other animals and take that to a whole new experiment.

Abstract

My project was really cool to learn about. The reason I did this project is because it's cool to see what another species does in different cases. Also because in your background research you can see how they are built and compare that to the way a human body is built. For example they can hear at complete different ranges than us (kHz). Something that is puny to , almost to the point where we can not hear it. But for a small insect like a cricket it is very frightening and can effect their stress level which goes on to effect their actions, the way they think and etc. Just like I did in my project, with the two boxes with a tunnel and one box with sound, the other one with none. From my research I found again that most crickets chose the box with no sound, my prediction, with the exception of of 4. I also found out about how they communicate and what their habitat and diet needs to consist of. Such as they NEED protein, or else they begin to eat each other! That's also from my own experience with them.